Only low-growling Hector and little Theunis, looking down from his bedroom window, saw them silently depart. In the cold gray dawn-light Petrus waved a quick "good-by" up to the wondering child and they were off. Long before sun-up, faithful Mutla had had the three ponies up-saddled and waiting under the orchard trees. He had strapped a small roll containing a pair of blankets and a rain-coat to the front of his master's saddle, and to that of the lead-horse he had tied a large piece of biltong, or sun-dried meat, a good supply of biscuit and coffee, and fastened an iron kettle in which to make it. Petrus had hurriedly pressed a Testament into the pocket of his moleskin trousers, and made sure that the two Mausers they were carrying were well oiled. There was no time to lose. They hoped to overtake Dirk on the road. [Illustration: "THE SEARCHING PARTY . . . CARRIED GREAT TORCHES"] True, the lieutenant had offered a reward of five hundred pounds in gold to the one who returned his little son alive to him; but love for his little English friend and neighbor was the real motive for Petrus' suddenly planned flight over the dangerous Drakensberg Mountains. All night long the lieutenant, heading a large searching party of his friends and neighbors, with half a hundred Kafirs, had scoured the neighboring woods and hills for some trace of George. In a fever of excitement, Aunt Edith, who spent the night at "Weltefreden," declared it was her belief that the poor boy must have been killed--assegaied--or thrown into some stream and perhaps devoured alive by the crocodiles. Aunt Johanna's fears, too, were grave, and Magdalena plainly informed Hercules that there could be no happy wedding on New Year's Day unless little George was captured from the Zulu, and brought home alive and well before that time. So all night the searching party, headed by the lieutenant, Petrus and Hercules, carried great torches of flaming grass and tree-branches, and flooded with light every deep game-pit, every clump of trees, kopje, and river bank. But no answer had come. So, at sunrise, the party broke up and returned home. Grief stricken, the lieutenant with the aid of Hercules, immediately formed a large well-armed party of picked Kafirs and made straight for the Kalahari Desert. There it was he had first seen the threatening Zulu. There it was he would no doubt return with George--and perhaps take his revenge by selling George into slavery to the Bechuanas. It was a long trip back to that deadly "thirst-land." They had left by sunrise. Already the party was well on its way.